Chapter 4 of Zabarella’s De Mente Agente (Parallel Text Format)

Main Topics Covered: the agency of the agent intellect, the role of the passive intellect, the object of the agent intellect vs. the object of the passive intellect, what the passive intellect understands, the role of the agent intellect in supplying a perfecting form to its object, the non-interaction of agent and passive intellects, how the passive intellect comes to understand the agent intellect, the proper reading of the opening lines of De Anima III.5

Chapter 4: A True Opinion Concerning the Action of the Agent Intellect

Therefore, regarding the action of the mental agent, I believe the following to be a true opinion, that, according to Aristotle, it is said to act upon the passive intellect not on images, but on images, but is joined to images as a form constituting the moving object of the passive intellect. This is made clear by considering Aristotle’s argument in contextus 17 [The opening lines of De Anima III.5]of this book, for Aristotle gathers there the necessity for the agent intellect from the constitution of the patient intellect, since nothing imperfect and in a state of potentiality wishes to remain in an imperfect state, but must necessarily be led to its natural perfectedness [See note 1]. However, it cannot bring itself to a state of completion on its own; therefore, it requires an agent whereby it might be made complete and led from a state of potentiality to actuality. For that reason, the mental agent acts upon the the passive mind and not on images, but is conjoined to them as a form.

From thence we gather the way in which it acts upon the passive mind: for it acts like the sun, and as an agent distinct from images, both since it follows that the act of understanding can occur without an image and also since it acts as a disposition and the form of phantasms. It acts, therefore, as something joined to phantasms, so that from each of the two one perfect object is constituted, capable of producing an intelligible form of that object in the passive intellect. Wherefore, the image is, but one agent, while the light of the agent intellect is not a separate agent, but is the “completion” of the image whereby it constitutes a completed object, capable of moving the passive intellect.

Therefore, the opinion of those who speak of the agent intellect as an intelligible agent rather than as an intelligent one, is correct, since if it must render an image actually intelligible, it is necessary that it should, itself, be, of itself, actually intelligible, just as light, inasmuch as it is, of itself, visible, not insofar as it is seeing, renders colors actually visible. In fact, it is necessary that it should itself also be something understood, since everything made actually intelligible is understood, though the nature of the agent does not consist in this, but in the fact that it is actually intelligible. But we should not be taken as indicating by this that it is intelligible to the extent that we understand the intellect according to its own nature and insofar as it is a substance separated from matter: for this is perhaps the ultimate thing that is known by us. However, it is said to act insofar as it is intelligible, to the extent that it is the means of intelligibility for other things, that is, to the extent that it is an enactment and completion whereby other things are made intelligible. And yet, it is nevertheless called intelligible, not since it is itself understood, but since since other things are understood by means of it: for thus, light also shares a location with the color of one visible and moving object: for it is not that the sun itself or its light is said to be seen separately, but that it is seen since it is the means whereby colors are actually visible.

It follows that the passive faculty of the intellect which is able to undergo change is not oriented toward any agent other than an image-object. Moreover, it cannot act unless it is brought to completion and made an actually moving object, so that the agent intellect is the form whereby an object becomes an actual object. Accordingly, it is related to its object as its form, while the passive intellect is related it as to an agent–not, to be sure as a separate agent, but as the constitutive form of an agent. This is without doubt Aristotle’s opinion, which he indicated with great artifice: for in the aforementioned contextus 17 he informs us that it is of the nature of the agent to be related to the passive intellect and then in contextus 18, he explains its mode of action so that we should not understand its agent to be distinct from its object: for he compares each intellect with its object, saying, “this is all things,” while the other “makes all things,” which is to say that it makes them to be actually intelligible. Finally, it “makes” after the manner of a natural disposition, i.e. as a form and a completion, which, when it is joined to its object, constitutes an actual, perfected object as we have explained.